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In a major about-face for the virtual reality teams at Facebook, the company announced a surprise Tuesday update to its VR "Spaces" app. The social media service's first VR chat app, still in beta and free, now officially supports its biggest home-VR rivals in the HTC Vive and the SteamVR platform.

This may come as a shock to anyone who has tried using Facebook VR software on rival hardware. Facebook and its home-VR company Oculus have spent more than a year telling customers that many of its major VR games and apps must remain exclusive to Oculus hardware, as opposed to being opened up and used by owners of rival hardware like the HTC Vive. This, in part, inspired a homebrew community to break Oculus' hardware-locking systems and prove that cross-platform issues were never technical. (The SteamVR platform, conversely, has supported outside hardware such as Oculus and Windows Mixed Reality from the moment those headsets reached the market.)

For now, anyone who wants to use Oculus Store content on hardware like HTC Vive must continue to employ software workarounds like "ReVive." But Facebook Spaces, as a separate, non-Oculus Store download, is arguably a much bigger piece of software to receive official rival support.

At October's Oculus Connect conference, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told a San Jose crowd that he wants "one billion people" (yes, B as in boy-that's-a-big-number) eventually using VR. This app's platform-opening change is a good indicator that Facebook may finally care less about which hardware someone uses and more about which software they use in any augmented, mixed, or virtual-reality interface. Getting more users into official Facebook VR apps may also be necessary for the company to test and harvest the data needed to achieve its lofty VR and AR goals, including geolocation tags of recommendations and friend moments that could appear in real-world locales.

Ars' Justin Timb--er, I mean, Kyle Orland draws happy trees.

Sam Machkovech

He also draws a happy chef.

Insert pre-made clip-art in your VR chat room.

Kyle has found the "disguise" clip-art.

I called a friend while I was in VR, and he sent this screen of how it looked. This was before I filled our chat lobby with all manner of weirdness and inappropriate doodles.

Kyle still has his shocked face on while posing with the selfie stick.

Here, Sam, have this picture.

Oh, I can post this to Facebook and, I dunno, make my friends jealous of my VR rig?

Sure, why not.

Kyle slaps more dumb stuff on my face and takes more photos of it.

By throwing a 360-degree image into the center of the table, Kyle and I can now hang out in snowglobe-like locales around the world.

I can place mirrors in the VR chat room wherever I please.

I hand a mirror to Kyle so that he can see what his avatar's T-shirt looks like. (The shirt is the only option in the beta, and it has the same logo as the conference this app was announced at, F8.)

The SteamVR version of Facebook Spaces, which must be downloaded from Facebook's official site and is currently Windows-only, is mostly identical to the Oculus one. The primary difference is that a few controls have been remapped from the Oculus Touch controllers to the HTC Vive wands, so a few finger-specific gestures are a little clumsier. But it's easy enough to figure out, and from there, you can create lobbies of up to four friends to have conversations, write notes, play with virtual toys, grab selfie-stick cameras, and pick through Facebook-feed content. As I found in my initial tests earlier this year, Facebook Spaces wins out by using a cute, expressive, Muppet-like avatar system and by keeping its chat system relatively simple and easy to figure out.

Further Reading

One welcome update has come to Spaces via an "experimental" toggle in its settings: Windows desktop support. This isn't quite the full desktop experience that Facebook wants to deliver via its Oculus Rift app, but it does let VR users point a stylus at their Windows desktop to mouse around and type into text bars via a floating keyboard without having to leave the Spaces app. For anyone who wants to have a legitimate 30-minute VR meeting with colleagues in Spaces, this productivity-minded tweak might very well be the difference maker.

That's great I suppose for FB/Oculus - but I will stick with Windows Mixed Reality (WMR) since it operates like purchasing any other component you buy for your pc (multiple options, multiple price points, multiple if overlapping feature sets, multiple OEMS, all of it works with Steam/Etc.).

On a side note - does the stuff that makes Vive work with Oculus VR Games also work for WMR devices?

They all have to do something to keep VR from fizzling like a bad fart. I dunno... there isn't any must have games in the VR space. Nothing that makes me say "Wow, I need to have that game."(and accompanying hardware.)

They all have to do something to keep VR from fizzling like a bad fart. I dunno... there isn't any must have games in the VR space. Nothing that makes me say "Wow, I need to have that game."(and accompanying hardware.)

Anyone know of a stellar FPS that takes advantage of VR?

We're all still waiting for Budget Cuts, which has been in the works for over a year and is poised to deliver Metal Gear Solid-style sneak-and-shoot VR play. Free test-version demo can be downloaded on Steam for now. And Farpoint is pretty solid on PSVR, albeit runs out of steam a little too early; I reviewed that earlier this year. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/05/ ... t-fps-yet/

Unexpected development. Necessary though, that Facebook would need to start dropping the walls of the garden to suck in everyone possible. That kind of common sense isn't often seen from corporations.

I still don't want Facebook ~literally~ tracking my every movement, so I will not be installing this.They have more than enough data on me as it is.

Do you really need Facebook? Seriously. I don't. I realized early in my career how much "trust" there needs to be with ISP's/online services. Even before I got into IT. So I only have one YouTube channel and stayed away from the FB's of the world.

They all have to do something to keep VR from fizzling like a bad fart. I dunno... there isn't any must have games in the VR space. Nothing that makes me say "Wow, I need to have that game."(and accompanying hardware.)

Anyone know of a stellar FPS that takes advantage of VR?

We're all still waiting for Budget Cuts, which has been in the works for over a year and is poised to deliver Metal Gear Solid-style sneak-and-shoot VR play. Free test-version demo can be downloaded on Steam for now. And Farpoint is pretty solid on PSVR, albeit runs out of steam a little too early; I reviewed that earlier this year. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/05/ ... t-fps-yet/

Thanks Sam. I recently got to try VR with Minecraft and am interested.

"Metal Gear Solid-style sneak-and-shoot VR play"If they do it right i'm in. (You had me at Metal Gear style

They all have to do something to keep VR from fizzling like a bad fart. I dunno... there isn't any must have games in the VR space. Nothing that makes me say "Wow, I need to have that game."(and accompanying hardware.)

Anyone know of a stellar FPS that takes advantage of VR?

We're all still waiting for Budget Cuts, which has been in the works for over a year and is poised to deliver Metal Gear Solid-style sneak-and-shoot VR play. Free test-version demo can be downloaded on Steam for now. And Farpoint is pretty solid on PSVR, albeit runs out of steam a little too early; I reviewed that earlier this year. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/05/ ... t-fps-yet/

Thanks Sam. I recently got to try VR with Minecraft and am interested.

"Metal Gear Solid-style sneak-and-shoot VR play"If they do it right i'm in. (You had me at Metal Gear style

You should also check out Pavlov and Onward. Both good online First Person Shooters. I myself prefer Onward, but they are both fun.

They all have to do something to keep VR from fizzling like a bad fart. I dunno... there isn't any must have games in the VR space. Nothing that makes me say "Wow, I need to have that game."(and accompanying hardware.)

Anyone know of a stellar FPS that takes advantage of VR?

I don’t know a lot of it has been the sense of presence and just ‘being there’ that the new age of VR provides. There really is nothing like flying a spaceship in Elite Dangerous, or sitting on top of a Mountain in Washington and just taking in all of nature, and while many games don’t natively support VR solutions like Vorpx are quite capable in allowing you to run them as if they were VR games. That’s how I play Alien isolation now and it amps the game up tremendously.

That's great I suppose for FB/Oculus - but I will stick with Windows Mixed Reality (WMR) since it operates like purchasing any other component you buy for your pc (multiple options, multiple price points, multiple if overlapping feature sets, multiple OEMS, all of it works with Steam/Etc.).

On a side note - does the stuff that makes Vive work with Oculus VR Games also work for WMR devices?

Yup. I've got a Samsung Odyssey and all the Oculus apps I've tried so far with revive work great.

Serious question. Besides FB integration, what does Facebook VR offer that isn’t already handled better by Rec Room VR, from larger lobbies full of more people, more stuff to play with, and HTC support for over a year?

They all have to do something to keep VR from fizzling like a bad fart. I dunno... there isn't any must have games in the VR space. Nothing that makes me say "Wow, I need to have that game."(and accompanying hardware.)

Anyone know of a stellar FPS that takes advantage of VR?

We're all still waiting for Budget Cuts, which has been in the works for over a year and is poised to deliver Metal Gear Solid-style sneak-and-shoot VR play. Free test-version demo can be downloaded on Steam for now. And Farpoint is pretty solid on PSVR, albeit runs out of steam a little too early; I reviewed that earlier this year. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/05/ ... t-fps-yet/

Thanks Sam. I recently got to try VR with Minecraft and am interested.

"Metal Gear Solid-style sneak-and-shoot VR play"If they do it right i'm in. (You had me at Metal Gear style

You should also check out Pavlov and Onward. Both good online First Person Shooters. I myself prefer Onward, but they are both fun.

Unexpected development. Necessary though, that Facebook would need to start dropping the walls of the garden to suck in everyone possible. That kind of common sense isn't often seen from corporations.

I still don't want Facebook ~literally~ tracking my every movement, so I will not be installing this.They have more than enough data on me as it is.

Do you really need Facebook? Seriously. I don't. I realized early in my career how much "trust" there needs to be with ISP's/online services. Even before I got into IT. So I only have one YouTube channel and stayed away from the FB's of the world.

I will definitely, when the stars and money align, get in on VR. Whenever that happens though, I can assure you, you could not pay ME to purchase, login or otherwise interact whatsoever with Facebook or its subsidiaries.

They all have to do something to keep VR from fizzling like a bad fart. I dunno... there isn't any must have games in the VR space. Nothing that makes me say "Wow, I need to have that game."(and accompanying hardware.)

Anyone know of a stellar FPS that takes advantage of VR?

I just got my wmr yesterday but google earth Vr I think is a must have for VR. I was very impressed at it and spent an hour just going around places like hawaii.

Follows over a year of Oculus software lockouts aimed at rivals like HTC Vive....Facebook and its home-VR company Oculus have spent more than a year telling customers that many of its major VR games and apps must remain exclusive to Oculus hardware, as opposed to being opened up and used by owners of rival hardware like the HTC Vive.

While there is a sentence in the middle of the article that clarifies, I think the headline and most of the rest of the body imply something misleading. Oculus software, as a subset of Facebook software, is still very much locked down to Oculus hardware. There is no indication of that changing - in fact, that Facebook could only make Spaces for Vive available outside of the locked-down Oculus store seems more like a doubling-down.

Serious question. Besides FB integration, what does Facebook VR offer that isn’t already handled better by Rec Room VR, from larger lobbies full of more people, more stuff to play with, and HTC support for over a year?

Facebook will be rolling out a new feature called SafeSpace VR. It comes with its own echo chamber.

They all have to do something to keep VR from fizzling like a bad fart. I dunno... there isn't any must have games in the VR space. Nothing that makes me say "Wow, I need to have that game."(and accompanying hardware.)

Anyone know of a stellar FPS that takes advantage of VR?

I just got my wmr yesterday but google earth Vr I think is a must have for VR. I was very impressed at it and spent an hour just going around places like hawaii.

I don't think games will be the primary seller of VR. I don't play many games in VR. If you want to see what the future of concerts could be try The Wave VR (free). Really cool trippy music concert app. VR DJing is pretty fun

I feel Facebook have been relatively lenient on VR exclusivity, however I admit I'm not in the industry and don't have any inside knowledge on how it works.

From the outside Facebook have sponsored the development of quite a number of high quality VR games (Robo Recall being one that springs to mind, I have a Vive). In return games are released as technically "exclusive to Rift", which supports Facebook's hardware, but for most games it's easy for the technically minded to download ReVive and get them working on the Vive. As a lot of early adopters are technical guys the games reach a large audience, whilst Facebook gets the marketing return on the money it's put in, which seems fair.

If facebook actually wanted to lock games out of Vive I'm sure they could do a better job given the infancy of the VR platform.

Serious question. Besides FB integration, what does Facebook VR offer that isn’t already handled better by Rec Room VR, from larger lobbies full of more people, more stuff to play with, and HTC support for over a year?

Facebook will be rolling out a new feature called SafeSpace VR. It comes with its own echo chamber.

I’m sure I’ll be a huge hit with Republicans then! No one needs more ego coddling. Not even children.

Serious question. Besides FB integration, what does Facebook VR offer that isn’t already handled better by Rec Room VR, from larger lobbies full of more people, more stuff to play with, and HTC support for over a year?

Actually I wouldn’t even go Rec Room, I would suggest Big Screen for meetings as it is free, handles more people, already has the features this has going on AND you can screen share to a big screen so you can easily swing between presenters.

It also rocks for hosting old fashioned LAN parties or watching a movie with friends across the world.

Facebook Spaces... Where the users are the products, not the customers - of course they're gonna open it up to everyone.

Fallout 4 VR and LA Noire VR (and incoming Skyrim VR), none of which are promoted for the Oculus Rift, and neither of which work particularly well on the Rift are going to lose them sales no matter how cheap the hardware gets.

They all have to do something to keep VR from fizzling like a bad fart. I dunno... there isn't any must have games in the VR space. Nothing that makes me say "Wow, I need to have that game."(and accompanying hardware.)

Anyone know of a stellar FPS that takes advantage of VR?

GT Sport on PSVR plays amazingly well. The biggest downside is that you can't play all the modes in VR, so you have to play it in flat mode to unlock more tracks for VR. Once you play in VR though, you don't really want to play it flat anymore.

I know I'm supposed to care about - and even get excited by the prospect of - VR. But I don't and I'm not. Not after the critical failure of 3D TV despite the epic f_ckton of hype (ViewMaster™ discs in the 80s had better depth perception). Not with the proliferation of standards (pretty much every retailer that carries electronics has at least a half-dozen VR headsets, all seemingly bespoke). Not when I've been unable to demo the freaking things (even mediocre 3D TV could be demo-ed almost anywhere). And certainly not when I need a bleeding-edge workstation to get what seems to be often described as merely acceptable performance ... with nitpicks (screendoor effects, fatigue, narrow FOV).

Maybe in a few more years some of these problems will be addressed. Or maybe the hype will no longer sustain things and the industry will have collapsed because of greed and prematurely blowing its load.

Facebook Spaces... Where the users are the products, not the customers - of course they're gonna open it up to everyone.

Fallout 4 VR and LA Noire VR (and incoming Skyrim VR), none of which are promoted for the Oculus Rift, and neither of which work particularly well on the Rift are going to lose them sales no matter how cheap the hardware gets.

They really need to open up their store, already owning a Rift is kind of like a badge of stupidity. People voluntarily purchased a product owned by Facebook? It kind of boggles the mind, but now that the Rift is just the least of a giant field of VR, their argument for walling off their garden makes little sense.

They really need to open up their store, already owning a Rift is kind of like a badge of stupidity. People voluntarily purchased a product owned by Facebook? It kind of boggles the mind, but now that the Rift is just the least of a giant field of VR, their argument for walling off their garden makes little sense.

Reason I did? The Vive is $800 and has a worse display and the only additional benefit/feature being the front facing camera to see things outside as needed.

The Rift has a much better display (reading text is night and day difference), has hand controls that are more intuitive and make sense objectively speaking (if you want to pick something up you literally do the identical actions as you do in real life, where as the vive being a wand has really strange feeling controls), and most importantly is only $350.

The same games, if in both the Oculus and Steam stores also tends to be much cheaper (on the order of 50% cheaper many times, for example Onward is $15 on Steam while it is $9 on Oculus, Elite Dangerous for the full Commander deluxe edition on Steam is $50, on Oculus it is $23) on the Rift.

Honestly though if the Vive had the same controls as the rift, the display screen door effect wasn’t atrocious (pretty much impossible to read most text in Elite for example), and the price split the current difference between the two (say $500-$600) I would have definitely swung to it. But given pretty much every Vive game also works on the Rift as is without the need for something like ReVive to get it to work the Rift just made more sense to me.